Thursday, June 11, 2009

Day 4 – Truth Telling

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---Emily Dickenson

I wonder what the slant telling of the truth of Christian education sounds like. I’m sure it is not the gibberish of a balanced approach to learning nor is it the swish of the great pendulum swinging back toward center. I’m just as sure that it includes a lyrical melody of imagination and creativity, with plenty of rests for the time to reflect on its paradoxes and harmonized with logic so that the final song makes sense to the mind and to the ear.

Our ways of thinking are so acculturated that we do not see ourselves accurately. At our best of times we are looking toward a foggy mirror. Even as we look intently, moving from side to side hoping for a better viewpoint, we never quite get a clear picture. If that is the case we must hold any truth we tell lightly because it is full of the bias of our experience.

Often the best answer to the question, “What is truth?” is “The Truth is a person.” This is true enough but what does it mean, really? Again we are stuck in the mindset imposed by our culture and hold to the notion that truth is only in the telling. Living the truth is incomprehensible. We easily separate what is in our mind from that which is in our heart. We are separatists by nature and put our knowing the truth a great distance from our doing anything about it. Herein lies the greatest difficulty in a slant telling of the truth, whether it be about Christian education or any other worthy endeavor.

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